


forgiveness isn't about what people deserve

by katebishoop



Series: tumblr prompts [12]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 06:56:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6319144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katebishoop/pseuds/katebishoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What we did.” He had placed his hand on hers -<i> “Together,” he had whispered </i>- and they had pulled that lever, adding the blood of three-hundred more to their already stained hands. “You don't have to do this alone.”</p><p>“No, you-” Clarke’s voice cracks, tears pricking at her eyes, “you don’t understand-”</p><p>“Clarke-” He places his hands on her shoulders. He has to think of <i>something</i>. “Come with me.”</p><p>
  <i>“Bellamy-” </i>
</p><p>“I’m not asking you to come inside,” he says, sliding his hand down her arm to intertwine with hers. “I’m asking you to come with me.” He takes a step away from camp, towards the forest. “Help me understand.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	forgiveness isn't about what people deserve

**Author's Note:**

> **anonymous asked:** i just finished season 2 and im having a lot of feelings can you write an alternate ending?? where clarke stays??
> 
> I hope you were expecting more feelings and not fluff cause that's what you got.

It had been an eight hour hike back to camp. He hadn’t been able to talk to her at all. He’d been busy making sure the kids were alright: Monty and Harper, checking on Raven, and he’d try to talk to Jasper but he shied away; he had a brief, pained conversation with his sister. Meanwhile, Clarke had hovered by her mother’s stretcher for a while, holding her hand, but then she had drifted to the back of the crowd, following them slowly like a shadow.

The way she hangs back now at the gates, giving Monty a hug, worries him. Monty’s look when he walks through the gates doesn’t help at all.

He goes to stand next to her, letting out a heavy breath; despite his worry, just being next to her puts him at ease.

“I think we deserve a drink.” He says. The deserve to forget, for a night.

“Have one for me.” Clarke’s face is blank. Even after everything he had to go through in the Mountain, he can’t imagine what she went through out here.

“Hey, if we can get through this…”

“I'm not going in.” She interrupts, and he freezes. 

He had wanted to run, once.

“Look…” Bellamy licks his lips, “If you need forgiveness, I'll give that to you.” Those words, her words, had played over and over again in his head more times than he could count. They had come back to him when Murphy was hanging him, when they lost Sterling, when he killed that guard, when he found out that guard had a son. They were coming back to him now. “You're forgiven.”

She had convinced him, her _ I need you _ had been enough for him to stay. “Please come inside.” He begs.

Clarke swallows. “Take care of them for me.”

_ I can’t lose you, too. _

_ “Clarke…” _

“No.” Clarke shakes her head. “Seeing their faces every day is just gonna remind me of what I did to get them here.”

“What  _ we _ did.” He had placed his hand on hers - “ _ Together,” he had whispered _ \- and they had pulled that lever, adding the blood of three-hundred more to their already stained hands. “You don't have to do this alone.”

“No, you-” Clarke’s voice cracks, tears pricking at her eyes, “you don’t understand-”

“Clarke-” He places his hands on her shoulders. He has to think of something. “Come with me.”

_ “Bellamy-”  _

“I’m not asking you to come inside,” he says, sliding his hand down her arm to intertwine with hers. “I’m asking you to come with me.” 

He takes a step away from camp, towards the forest. “Help me understand.”

Clarke bits her lip; a tear slips down her cheek. She looks absolutely terrified. “You’ll hate me.”

“Hey- no,” Bellamy brings his other hand up to cup her cheek, brushing the tear away with his thumb. “Hey, Clarke - look at me.” Bellamy swallows down the lump building in his throat. “I could never hate you, okay?”

Clarke opens her mouth and closes it again. She’s shaking slightly when her hand reaches up to  cover the one he has on her cheek. 

She gives him a small nod, and he lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.

“Okay.” He looks out back towards camp, and sees Kane watching them. Kane seems to understand what’s going on, and nods to him before turning back. He turns back to Clarke, who is no looking at the ground. “Okay.”

He leads her away from camp, away from prying eyes and perked ears.  He doesn’t take her too far into the trees, he wants to keep camp in their sights.

He finds a log for them to sit on. She lets him peel off her gloves, and he holds her hands; they feel cold as ice, and he rubs small circles into them with his thumbs, to both warm them up and to try to provide comfort.

“My dad had told me that forgiveness isn’t about what people deserve.” Clarke chokes out. He didn’t know how to begin, but he knew that Clarke would. “But -  _ God,  _ Bellamy. I  _ don’t  _ deserve it, especially from you.”

“We’ll you have mine,” Bellamy whispers, “I’m never going to stop giving it to you.”

Clarke breaks, the dam bursting open, her whole body racking with sobs. He tries to put his arms around her, but she shies away covering her face.

“How can you say that?” Clarke manages to say, “After- after everything I’ve done to you-”

“Clarke-”

“Octavia- she told me what happened to you in the Mountain.” Bellamy freezes. The mere mention of that makes his skin tingle, makes his throat itch from remembering the metal collar. “They _tortured_ \- that’s on me, _I sent you in there_!”

“It was my idea to go in-”

“I told you that you were worth the _ risk!  _ It’s not - _you’re_ not-” Clarke’s breaths are short and ragged, and she doesn’t flinch this time when he places his hands on her shoulders.

“Clarke, breathe - _Clarke_ , look at me, okay?” Bellamy pleads. It had hurt, it had cut him deep when he had told him that - that she went from _I can’t lose you too_ to _it’s worth the risk_ in less than a day. But just because it hurt doesn’t mean it was wrong. “ _ Breathe. _ It was, to get our people out. It was the right call, it’s not your fault the plan fell apart. Come on, Clarke, take a deep breath. Breathe with me.”

Clarke gasps, and she gets worse before she gets better; he breaths evening out, matching his, becoming deeper and deeper, slower and slower. The tears manage to halt, too.

He thinks just for a moment, that it’s done, that he’s gotten through to her, that it’ll all be okay.

But then she says, her voice so quiet he almost misses it: “You don’t know, do you?”

Bellamy’s confused expression makes Clarke close her eyes. “Octavia didn’t tell you.”

“Clarke, what-?” The tears are back, running silently down her cheeks.

“The missile. TonDC.” Clarke says, her voice hollow and shaky. “I… I _had_ got there in time. But Lexa… she convinced me that to keep your cover we couldn’t evacuate. We slipped out and…”

Bellamy’s blood runs cold.

“Octavia…” The name slips out from his lips. 

He stands up, her hands falling from his. He can’t believe this, that she…

“You knew, and you... You let a bomb drop on my sister?” The words taste unreal, but they light a fire in his chest. His hands clench into fists. “You were going to let  _ my sister  _ _die_?”

“I had done it to protect you-”

“Protect  _ me _ ?” Bellamy snaps. He knows this is what she was worried about, that this is the thing she knew he wouldn't understand. But that doesn't help at all, he feels no sympathy. “My sister - she’s the most important - she’s my only family - _I never would have asked you to do that_!” His mind is spinning, pulse racing. He has to take a step back, away from her. “I  _ trusted _ you!”

His booming voice, his rage, echos around them, scaring a flock of birds nearby.

“Without her, I’m nothing.” Bellamy braces himself against a tree. He can’t look at her; in this moment, he does not recognize her. “What would have happened if that bomb killed her, Clarke?”

She doesn’t answer, he can’t picture what he face looks like. He doesn't know...

“You said that we don’t decide who lives and who dies,” he says, after what feels like forever, “but now you get to decide whose lives are worth the risk? We're not soldiers, Clarke, we're not _pawns-_!”

“This is why I wanted to leave.” Clarke says. He turns to face her - red rimmed eyes, tearstained cheeks, bloody, picked-at fingers. “I… I didn’t want to be around to see you hate me. I was scared and I just -” Clarke sucks in a tight breath, closing her eyes. “Finn killed eighteen people in my name and that - _god,_ Bellamy - knowing that makes me feel like terrible -  _ responsible _ . I didn’t want you to know that feeling, to know all the horrible things I did in your name.” Clarke rubs her hands over her face. “I was going to lose you, so I thought selfishly that the last time I saw you might as well be on better terms.”

Bellamy didn’t know when the tears had started, but now his face was wet and sticky from them.

He is still angry, his chest heaving, but the fire has died down. It’s not a rage, it’s mostly disappointment, and sadness. The ground has made monsters of them both.

“That’s not fair, Clarke.” He goes to stand in front of her. “I still would have found out - and you would have been gone, and-” Bellamy sighs, the last ember of anger going out. “And it would be a lot harder to forgive you if you weren’t there.”

Clarke’s head jerks up to look at him - her eyes wide, surprised, unbelieving, hopeful.

“You’re right - you may or may not deserve forgiveness. Hell, I don’t know if Octavia ever will forgive you. And I’m still pissed, but-” Bellamy shakes his head. The line is always blurred when it comes to Clarke; she has this hold on him. He'd do anything, to protect her; it just made sense, even now. “We’ll figure it, okay? I need… I need some time, to be able to give it to you for this.” As he says this, he has already begun to forgive her, that's just how they work; but he needs to speak with his sister, and he needs to know one other thing. 

“But, Clarke?” Bellamy begins again, “If you were to leave now - I don’t know if I could. Not for this.”

Her watery eyes dart between his face and his outstretched hand. She bites her lip, hard enough to draw a little dot of blood. His heart starts to race-

But then she takes his hand.

_ we can get through this, _  he had promised what feels like hours ago.

He helps her up off the log, and he thinks that’s it, but then Clarke throws her arms around him, pulling him into a tight embrace.

“I’m sorry, Bellamy,” Clarke says into the crook of his neck, “I’m so, _so_ sorry.”

Bellamy curls his fingers into her hair, breathing her in.

They were a mess - everything was one gigantic mess - but she was staying. And that was enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out over on [tumblr](http://bellakeyblake.tumblr.com)!


End file.
